Print-Capitalism?
The author revisits the theory of print capitalism & the origins of nationalism as explained in Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities. Anderson, by reducing Marxism & liberal theory to a perspective, elided the sharp disconnection between Marxism & liberalism. This elision effectively permitted the operation of a theoretical discrepancy, which formed the foundation of Anderson's theory of nationalism. This allowed the substitution of non-Marxist concepts of capitalism for the Marxist & permitted capital to represent the capitalist mode of production. In this essay, the author develops his argument by examining the relationship between print capitalism & the demise of the Latin language, nationalism & the consumption of the print commodity, & the role of Christopher Plantin as an early print capitalist. 11 References. A. Funderburg